Sarova Salt Lick Game Lodge is an all-night game viewing lodge which is especially memorable for its imaginative structure. A complex of rondavels, it is raised on stilts over a series of water holes, which draw large numbers of fame. Each double storey tower is topped by a peaked thatched roofs and connected to its fellows by open-air bridges, which are pulled up at night - rather like a drawbridge in a castle. The lodge has been constructed specifically for the purpose of viewing the game that comes to the waterholes.

Location Tsavo lies some 232 kms from Nairobi and can be reached by road or air (three air strips).

Kenya hotels and accommodation Amongst the wide range of Kenya hotels, some make the ideal Kenya safari destination. Choose a safari lodge, safari hotel, bush camp, luxury lodge, safari camp, tented camp or bush lodge. National park accommodation usually takes the form of a traditional safari lodge or tented camp, but numerous other options exist on the park boundaries. Luxury lodges and luxury camp options are also offered in the private wildlife conservancies.

The Background

Theatre of the wild The joint mass of Tsavo West and Tsavo East National Parks forms one of the largest national parks in the world and covers a massive 4% of Kenya's total land area. Tsavo East, one of the last great wilderness landscapes on Earth, offers a vast arena of parched scrub and heat-shimmering bush, which is washed by the azure waters and emerald-fringed meanderings of the Galana River, guarded by the limitless lava reaches of the Yatta Plateau and patrolled by some of the largest elephant herds in the world. Tsavo West, land of lions and lava, is painted on a sprawling canvas of endless skies, emerald hills, liquid lava flows, palm-fringed rivers, teeming wildlife and sparkling oases, where rafts of hippo wallow, snort and blow in the crystal clear melt-waters of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Kenya's largest National Park supports all the members of the ‘Big Five' as well as the country's largest elephant population. Tsavo achieved notoriety in the 1900's when ‘the Man-eaters of Tsavo', a pair of rogue man-eating lions, preyed gruesomely on the builders of the Uganda Railway. Today the Park is more famous for the numerous prides of mane-less lion that patrol the plains and police the herbivore herds.

Accommodation There are 96 curved rooms with large windows, twin beds and ensuite bathroom.

Dining and bars The lounge has a free-standing stone fireplace. Candle-lit dinners are served buffet-style in the ring-shaped dining room. Hot and cold snacks and drinks are available all night long.

Child-friendly The camp welcomes children over 12 years of age.

What to see and do Salt Lick Safari Lodge is located in the heart of its own private wildlife Sanctuary with more than 50 species of mammals and over 300 species of birds. Bush breakfast, Barbeque lunch, 'Out of Africa' dinners and sundowner cocktails can be arranged on request at Kudu View Point or elsewhere in the Sanctuary. The lodge also has a tunnel with bunker and special windows for close-up viewing of game at the floodlit waterhole at night.

Around and about The Park is ideally situated for visits to the massive expanses of sister park, Tsavo East whilst the verdant Taita Hills and the volcanic eruptions of the Chyulu Hills are close by. World-renowned Amboseli National Park is also within easy reach.